The Beginning Of It All
by PCBW
Summary: Can be read as a stand alone or as a sequel to At the End of it All. Post Year Of Hell AU. Thanks a million for reading!
1. Chapter 1

Dim. Grey. Lights flickering. The hazy smell of ash in the air, filling her lungs.

Battered bulkheads, frayed wires, fire, smoke.

She looked around; there was no one.

"Chakotay?" She called out. The milieu felt hazy, as if the whole world were in slow motion.

No answer.

"Chakotay?" She kept walking through ravaged decks. No one, not even an ensign walked past in greeting.

What deck is this?

Three, she noted – says so on the bulkhead.

Ah! There was Chakotay's door. She rang the charred chime. Why won't he answer? She tapped her comm. badge again. "Janeway to Chakotay."

No answer.

Intuitively she punched in his access code. But once the door slid open, her breath caught. No one lived here; there was too much damage. A leaden weight settled in her stomach – its origin or reason for being unknown, but gnawing nonetheless. She stepped over the threshold, taking in more of the damage as she walked over broken bits and pieces of her beloved ship.

He wasn't here. Somehow she knew that. But where did he go? She didn't know. She tried in vain to remember as she tripped over the upturned chair.

A glimmer of silver caught her eye. What's this? She bent low and uncovered the hidden gem from its bed of soot and rubble. An old timepiece, she mused as she turned it over, much like a prop from one of her silly Victorian holodeck schemes.

Funny, its weight felt familiar in her hand, like she'd held it before.

Suddenly, without warning a loud crash riveted her attention. Automatically, she quickly fixed the old pocket watch to her belt and ran towards the cacophony.

And that's when she saw it coming towards her: obliterating her ship was an oncoming holocaust. She felt the tell tale burning in her throat as the white-hot atmosphere singed her lungs.

"Kathryn!" A voice called – so distant as if in a dream.

"Chakotay?" She looked to her left, her right hand palming the timepiece as her eyes riveted away from the oncoming fire. The heat was getting closer; its hellish temperature was becoming unbearable.

"Kathryn!" The hazy voice called again. "Kathryn, wake up!"

Her eyes shot open, momentarily disorienting her. "Kathryn," he called again, his voice louder this time.

Cool. That's the first thing she felt. Cool. No fire. No flames.

"Chakotay?" Reflexively tears filled her eyes. He wasn't gone – he was here, holding her up. "You're here," she smiled. Wait. "You're here?" Propriety took over and she jerked away from him, covering herself. "What are you doing here?"

"You were screaming, and crying my name," he moved back, giving her space. "You didn't respond to hails, so I came to wake you."

A dream. It was a dream.

"I had a dream," she looked down, her hand coming up to wipe the moisture that was drying on her cheeks.

"A nightmare," He half smiled as he moved to stand from her bed. "I'm sorry, Kathryn, would you like me to go?"

"No," she shot, before she could think of it. It was good to have him here. For a second she thought of the impropriety of him being in her bedroom. But somehow, she cocked her head – somehow it felt right to have him here; almost as if he belonged.

"Voyager…" She looked at the smooth, intact bulkheads of her quarters, momentarily juxtaposing their cohesiveness to the jagged, broken ones in her dream.

"She was destroyed." She looked up at him, his features open, concerned.

"You were gone," She whispered, looking away.

"Where was I?" He sat tentatively again on the bed next to her.

"I don't know," She rasped. "I went looking for you, calling your name, but you didn't answer. And then…" she looked up briefly before continuing. "And then, I remember stumbling into your quarters. There was glass everywhere, broken bits of somethings, upturned tables and chairs," she gestured as she continued. "I found something – a timepiece, an old –"

His breath caught, riveting her eyes to his. "What?"

"The pocket watch…" He started.

"Yes," She interjected, eyes wide in astonishment. "How did you know?"

He got up, pacing the room, looking anywhere but at her. "It's a gift. I was going to give it to you for your birthday in a few weeks." He faltered, "I must have told you about it…"

"You didn't…" She whispered.

He looked straight at her and smiled, still baffled and unsure himself. "I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

"Mmmm," she hummed confusedly.

"Well," he got up again. "It was just a dream," he smiled, not wanting to appear stilted or cold. Being here with her, though –seeing her like this, tousled and matted with sweat was like some sort of exquisite torture. She was scared, afraid, and as much as he wanted to stay and comfort her, he wasn't in the mood to be turned away again – to have his kindness and concern for her rebuffed for the hundredth time. And, not only that, he was aroused. "I'll leave you. Sleep well, Kathryn."

And with that the hydraulic doors opened and closed and he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

His surroundings were unfamiliar. Brown, and green. Not Voyager, he mused hazily.

No - Voyager was grey and blue.

And he's alone. Where? The markings on the wall are foreign, but not totally unfamiliar. They're becoming more and more common – the subtle nuances of the alien language seem to come to him at an alarming frequency. But why?

And Kathryn, he looked around – she's not here. He wants to find her, to go back to her; he knows the much. A subtle sense of desperation sets in every time he thinks of her. He frowns when he remembers her and the last time they were together. A pang of hurt hurdles towards his gut – but why?

"Just one more," an unfamiliar voice breaks the silence.

"Just one more what?" He asks in response.

"Just one more civilization. Then you'll get her back." The voice is deep and familiar, but he's never heard it before.

"I want to go back to her," he whispers. And he does - more than anything.

He'd do anything to get her back – to hold her, finally, and tell her things he's only said in dreams; to tell her that he loves her even though she turns him away; to stand beside her, to support her even when she doubts herself.

"I know, Chakotay," the disembodied voice soothed. "Just be patient. You'll get to your Kathryn."

"Yes. Kathryn," he mused.

The retrospective calmness of the moment was ripped before he could finish pondering what the voice meant. A loud crash booms from outside the geometric brown bulkheads. He ran to the corridor and there he saw her; there was Voyager about to crash into the alien ship, into him. He felt panic, but not because he was about to die; he panicked because he couldn't find her.

"Kathryn!" He called reflexively. "Kathryn!"

"Chakotay," her voice called in response over the maelstrom. Incongruously he smiles in the moment, the sound of her low alto distracting him from the impending catastrophe.

"Kathryn," he smiled as he ripped his eyes away from the oncoming calamity. He knew she'd come; he knew he'd find her. The sound of screeching metal was deafening, but he heard her again.

"Chakotay," she beckoned again. "Chakotay wake up!"

Quiet. It's the first thing he noticed. The sound of screeching metal was absent. He looked to his left, past her, to the bulkheads.

Grey.

"Kathryn?" He mused confusedly. What was she doing here? "What are you doing here?"

She looked shy, uncomfortable in the intimacy of his room; even in the cool evening dimness of his quarters, he could still read her.

"You were screaming my name." She mirrored his own words from the other night. "I tried hailing you, but when you didn't respond I came to wake you."

"I was having-"

"A nightmare," she interrupted. "I know."

He sat up, looking at her straight on. "I wasn't on Voyager; I was in a place I'd never been."

It's strange to have her here, in his bedroom, on his bed. It's the strange zone where reality and dreams intersect.

"Where were you?"

"I don't know," he laughed at his next words. "Brown."

"Brown?" She quirked an elegant eyebrow, amusement lacing her question.

"That was the only thing I noticed about it – the place I was in. It was brown, and Voyager is grey. You weren't there." He whispered solemnly.

"Where was I?" She copied.

"I don't know," his brown eyes met hers. "Missing."

It's odd to be here with him like this. They've been close before. For Heaven's sake, they essentially lived in the same room for three months. But here on Voyager, where the lines between them are so strongly demarcated, it's strange to be so close to him. It feels comfortable, right, she admits – good to be here with him. "You left so soon last night." The words and the hurt tumble out before she can put a damper on them.

"I thought you wanted to be alone." He lied.

She knew he was lying, but she ignored it for the time being. "Our dreams..." She fumbled as she played with the veins and tendons on her hands as she tried to find purchase among her thoughts. "Do you think they mean something?"

"I don't know, but…" he trailed off, collecting his thoughts.

"But?" She caught. She's learned him over the past four years; she's learned all of his mannerisms, his quirks. Nothing slips past anymore.

"Today…" This is what she has been waiting for. "When we came across," he looked up, then down.

"The Krenim," she volunteered.

"You felt it too?" He felt hopeful, like he wasn't alone in his delusion.

"Like a memory from a dream."


	3. Chapter 3

He felt exposed as he sloughed the damp covers off. Sweat had drenched through the thin silkiness of his grey sheets, and the moisture chilled his skin as he peeled them off.

For a moment she looked startled, seeing all of him - the broad expanse of his chest, the lithe muscularity of his legs. He was wearing a pair of pinstripe white boxers. They obscured anything of interest, but still she looked on.

She was staring, and obviously so.

It wasn't as though she hadn't seen him – his body- before. On New Earth, she'd watched him swim once. He didn't know; like a peeping Tom she'd hid behind a tree, watching the smooth lines of his muscles ripple in the water.

She'd wanted him back then. Badly. With a startling acuity, she remembered the dull, pulsing ache she'd felt between her thighs on that sunny day as she watched the sun glint off his ebony hair. Her fingers itched to trace the solid lines of his chest, down to where his large hipbones disappeared into the bulkiness of his swim trunks.

He caught her gazing; nothing got past him anymore. Kathryn was an open book to him. It hadn't taken long to figure her out. Within the first three months of taking his position as First Officer, he'd begun to memorise her mannerisms, her tics; she crossed her legs when she was pensive, clutched her coffee mug a certain way when she was about to disagree with him. She tugged on her comm. badge when she was nervous or about to drop a bombshell. She smiled often to hide things that bothered her, and she never cried – not in front of people anyway. But he heard her.

He heard her cry alone in her quarters after the injury or death of every crewman. Sometimes she sobbed herself to sleep. She did that the night they returned from New Earth.

Yes, Kathryn Janeway may have been an inscrutability to every alien race, and even to every member or her crew – even to Tuvok – but not to him. And right now, Kathryn Janeway was staring at him with pure lust in her eyes.

"Kathryn?" He croaked, unsure that was even his own voice as it escaped his larynx.

"Coffee," She muttered, looking away from him at a frantic pace. "Coffee," she regrouped and headed out of the room. "And we'll talk."

"I hope you didn't replicate me any coffee," he joked, walking out of his bedroom having donned T-shirt and sweat pants.

"Oh no," She laughed, handing him a steaming cup of tea. "Tea for you weaklings."

"Weaklings?" He chuckled, inhaling the soothing aroma of lavender. "Hardly. I have to put up with you every day!" He'd meant it as a joke. But seeing her face after he'd said it, regret oozed from every pore. "Kathryn, I'm sorry," he fumbled. "I was joking. Bad joke..."

"No," she cut off his last sentence. "You're right. I haven't been the easiest to get along with lately. I'm sorry."

"No," he shook his head, keeping his gaze in line with the floor. "I'm sorry. That was insensitive."

"Chakotay," her hand met his. It was meant to be conciliatory, but something passed between them in that moment. The meeting of skin was somewhat of a revelation in itself. She often touched him; she touched his chest through his uniform; squeezing his shoulder through the pad of the uniform was a common occurrence. But his skin, she'd never touched it – not since he held her hand on New Earth; she almost didn't dare.

This was why.

Their connection was electric, the touching of flesh was like a Pandora's box – it itched to be opened, yearned even, but once that lid was cracked open, a thousand things would tumble out. A maelstrom of emotions and feelings threatened to seep out, laying waste to the steel-constructed barriers that allowed her to compartmentalize her feelings, her life, and her emotions.

The words just seemed to run out. "It's like a memory from something that never happened. It felt so real."

She began to pull her hand away, but he clasped it tight, keeping it on top of his own. She couldn't help but continue trying to sort out her thoughts. "The emotion of it was so palpable, like I'd felt those things before…"

"It doesn't make any sense… how you knew about the watch."

"You never told me."

"I know."

"Today, when that man came up in the view screen and told us to avoid Krenim space, something felt…."

"Familiar," He volunteered. "Like we'd seen him before."

"And viscerally," she gestured to her stomach. "I knew to tell Tom to plot a course around Krenim space." She shook her head, trying to sort out her own disparate thoughts.

"I felt it too," he whispered.

They were silent for a while, allowing each other to mull and ponder their odd predicament. "Like a memory from a dream," he mirrored.

"What?"

"It's like you said, 'a memory from a dream.'"

"Mmm," She allowed herself another moment's thought before she asked, again without thinking through the ramifications of her questions. "Why did you cry out for me?"

He smiled and met her gaze. "Why did you cry out for me?" He mimicked, turning her question back on her.

She gave him a coy smile and again attempted to pull her hand away. He just held on tighter. "I asked you first." Her voice was liquid as she met his gaze full on.

His dimples displayed his amusement with her. "I was dying. Voyager, from the ship I was on – I could see her coming right at me, obliterating the ship where I was… But that wasn't why I was frightened. I was frightened because…" He faltered.

He faltered because he knew that if he committed to what he was going to say, he'd irreparably change their relationship; he'd tip the fine scales that she'd set and she might pull away forever.

Kathryn was sometimes like a timid doe; move an inch and it would run a mile in the opposite direction and you'd have to start all over again. If he told her what he was afraid of – why he woke screaming her name in agony, she could run a mile and he'd never catch up.

"Because?" Her warm hand clutched at his fingertips, egging him on.

His gaze met hers; deep brown sidled up with smoky blue. "Because you weren't there. I was terrified of dying without you, without telling…" He caught himself. "Your turn."

She smiled as his evasiveness. He really had no idea, but sometimes she wondered if he knew what she wouldn't even voice herself. She wondered if he saw what secrets she kept buried in her heart about him; how much she desired him, how often she fantasised about him, dreamt about him, and longed for him with a hunger that left her aching.

She wondered if he could see all the precious imaginings that she held so dear. She'd started most of them on New Earth. She'd been a bit of a fleeting idealist back then. A planet with just the two of them – a 24th century Adam and Eve playing house in their very own Garden of Eden.

Sometimes she saw little naked brown boys running around the Talaxian tomato-overwrought garden. And, she saw little girls with long black hair and dimples that lit up their faces. She saw cribs and heard his voice tell ancient legends…

"Your turn," He smiled cheekily as he watched the emotion play out on her face. "Why where you calling my name?"

"I told you last night," she smirked.

"Uh unh, Kathryn," he shook his head and laughed at her manipulation. "You're not getting out of this that easily. So?"

"I told you, I was alone on Voyager. I kept looking for you-"

"Why?" He knew he was treading on thin ice, but opportunities like this with Kathryn came along so rarely.

She looked away, abashedly. "You're my best friend, my first officer." She changed the subject, hastily carrying on with her dream. "I found the watch, and I was filled with the biggest sense of regret, but I didn't know why. But right as I found the timepiece, I heard a crash and an explosion. So, I ran to hallway to see what it was. And that's when I woke up – just as the flames were crashing through the deck, just before I died."

Again they fell into silence, letting the moment set between them. "Do you think it means something?"

He didn't have to wait to respond. "Yes."

"But what?"

"I don't know," He shook his head.

"Ugh," She let her head fall into her free hand. "This sounds like another one of those dreaded temporal paradoxes!"

"A temporal anomaly? Do you think the dream really happened in another reality?"

She laughed at the frustration of it all. "I don't know! But…how else would I have known about the watch?"

He had no response, so he squeezed her hand and began to relinquish his warm grasp on her small fingers. "Well," he smirked, two deep dimples began to show themselves. "I guess we'll never know."

He half expected her to pull away; mystery solved – parameters back in place. Kathryn could resume her status quo. She'd brush him off with a cursory smile and a "goodnight Commander" and everything would monotonously go back to normal.

"Wait," she pulled his hand back, a hint of trepidation eating at her as she clasped his palm. Being here with him like this, it felt right. She remembered her avatar in her dream; she wasn't afraid of dying, but she was deathly terrified. And Kathryn knew why; she didn't want to die without this man – without telling him, and without hearing those words from him.

But saying those words to him, opening the deepest corners of her heart to him would mean risking everything. Haughtily she wasn't afraid of being turned down; Chakotay's feelings for her were like an open book – hell he'd even so much as told her down on that planet.

But to do something like she was contemplating – there was such a deafening finality to it all. But didn't he deserve that? Hell, didn't she?

Was her being stranded here the in Delta Quadrant, an act of random chance a death sentence for her own emotion, for her own happiness? She used to think that denying herself this man's love was an act of penance, but she wasn't so sure anymore. Life here was precarious; each day seemed to weaken her resolve and having to maintain this pretense of nonchalance with regard to her feelings for this wonderful man was eating at her, chipping away at her piece by piece. Almost in a moment of prescience she could see herself years from now: bitter, alone, and full of sadness and regret.

No the truth was that she didn't want to live without him, so she made a choice. "Without telling me what?" She whispered, her gaze still meeting the floor.

He wasn't sure if he'd heard her right, "Kathryn?"

Brown once again met smoky blue. "Without telling me what? What was it that you were going to say?"

"Kathryn I…"

"No, Chakotay-" In a moment she realized that it wasn't his place to make this step; she'd built the walls, and it was her duty to tear them down. She cleared her throat and the words just seemed to spill out. "I wasn't afraid to die, Chakotay. But I was terrified of dying without you." She realized in a moment how that sounded and shook her head, trying to backtrack. "No, God that sounds-" she cleared her throat. "What I mean-mmmhh…"

Her last words never hit the air; they were swallowed in a kiss. Chakotay took full advantage of her open mouth and, leaving hesitancy aside, entered her mouth with his tongue. She tasted just like he imagined – like coffee with a tinge of something he couldn't describe but instantly developed an addiction to. He knew that kissing her would be like this, and that once he started he'd never stop.

How long she'd fantasised about his lips – goodness it would have to be coming close to 4 years now. If she was honest, those imaginations had started the day she'd seen them. They were so beautiful, so unique; their lines so graceful, itching to be touched, licked, and traced. They fit perfectly to hers, even at the awkward angle. And his taste, the feeling of his tongue against hers… Even Dante's florid proclamations of love and passion couldn't have described this feeling.

"I was terrified of never telling you that I loved you, Kathryn." The words came so naturally and without hesitation.

She smiled, breathing his breath. "Good."

"Good?" He laughed, relieved that she hadn't slapped him for insubordination and stormed out of his quarters, demolishing their friendship and making way for a terribly awkward 60-year trip home.

"I love you, Chakotay. I have for some time now, but I've been too stubborn to admit it even to myself. I thought I could do this on my own, that my isolation from you was an act of penance. But that dream felt so real and, as foolish and cliché as this sounds, it made me realize that I don't want to live without you – without telling you, tasting you, making love to you…"

Fat tears formed, building the pressure behind his eyes at her words. How long he'd loved her, wishing that she'd loved him back! And she did – she wanted him back. A sudden thought occurred to him and he pulled his hand away from hers. For the second time that evening, her elegant eyebrow shot up, questioning his sudden movement.

Without leaving her gaze, he tapped the back of his hand three times.

She quirked a crooked smile, "Chakotay, what are you doing?"

Nothing happened. The world didn't shift. He didn't wake up. "Just checking that I'm not dreaming."

Her grin spread, "No Chakotay, you're not dreaming. This is real. This is forever."

Those dimples once again made an appearance as he leaned in towards her, parted his lips, captured hers and the universe exploded with a million possibilities.


End file.
